YUMA, Ariz- President Obama reversed course on federal education policy Thursday, signing a bill to reduce the federal government’s role in education from kindergarten through high school and instead allow states to set their own standards.
Calling the bipartisan every student succeeds act “a Christmas miracle,” Obama said the law would give states more flexibility in raising student achievement while maintaining a federal role in making sure that all students have the opportunity to get a quality education.
Associate Superintendent YUHSD, Jamie Sheldahl said, “Local school boards will have greater input into how the new law is implemented. And that’s always the challenge is once the law has been passed and signed then it’s up to the State Departments of Education to implement the act.”
Sheldahl said, the new law won’t change much locally so the school hasn’t taken too much time to talk about how they plan on implementing new educational tactics.
Sheldahl adds, “It doesn’t really change how much we go about our business in Yuma. Are local school boards and various districts and I know for sure in our high school districts our school board is a very pro-active school board. And we’ve made sure that are standards and that are procedures and process for our kids is definitely set up to the minimum standards.”
The Every Student Succeeds Act requires schools to test 95% of students every year from the third through eighth grades, and again in high school. It also requires schools to report those test scores for minority groups to ensure they’re closing the achievement gaps. And it requires states to step in if a school falls into the bottom 5%, graduated less than 67% of students, or if subgroups are persistently falling behind.
One thing that they’re hopeful about is the potential to streamline teacher certification.
Sheldahl said, “The no child left behind act. There was kind’ve a double hurdle to jump because of the teacher certification standards which they call “highly qualified teacher standards.” And then various states had their various teacher certification requirements at the same time, so it was kind’ve a double target for folks to shoot at.”